We may find a number of elements causing problems outside in the garden during the winter months. These include frost, and penetrating cold, high winds, heavy snow and heavy rain causing waterlogged ground.

Usually dry winters present the least problem, not least because even a dry winter sees far less water loss through evaporation and transporation than even a mid autumn month. However, with dry winters can come chill northerly or easterly winds of course. Whilst very cold weather is often blamed for plant loss, in fact it's usually the combination of the wind with very cold temperatures. Such early cold in November and early December is particularly problematic, as deciduous plants are very  vulnerable then- because they are not yet fully dormant. Longer periods of severe weather (of more than a week) will also likely be damaging later in the winter. It is possible to minimise the damage likely by both wind and penetrating cold, though.

Strong

October is when we see the nights draw in rapidly and daylight quickly diminishes. So if you have a garden -and more importantly the time!- time to start on the autumn chores, gather up all the garden waste and have a bonfire. Although its not considered especially ecologically sound anymore to have them,  I have to admit to still getting very nostalgic about the tradition, something about the smell of woodsmoke in the autumn drifting through the countryside seems quintessentially 'English' (and quite possibly Irish, Welsh & Scottish too, if you are from those areas!) .

As I mentioned though, local councils do encourage gardeners to reduce waste by composting as much of the refuse as possible especially plants waste. You can buy compost bins from your local Community Recycling Centre if you wish to keep it a little tidier. (look at your local council website or phone up to see what is available; some will even deliver them to you free of charge)

If you decide to go ahead

By October it's time to start tidying up the garden in preparation for the long relatively sunless and perhaps wet winter period ahead. Jobs can be divided into those that tidy up the garden after summer, those that allow it to hibernate over the winter period and jobs which prepare it for the coming spring and summer.

For autumn:

You'll need to split and divide herbaceous plants whilst weeding and mulching the border. Remember to remove diseased plants (or parts of plants) so they cannot propagate any further or spread the infection to other healthy plants. Winter is a prime time for this to occur. You'll need to check bushes and trees for stability, especially those that have grown a lot during the last summer and prop them up or re-stake

The main problems associated with damp gardens in the summer often hinge on the flora being too close, so you need to ensure that areas of denser foilage are well ventilated. In the summer garden you do need to catch disease as soon as you spot it, as it can take hold surprisingly rapidly in a relatively warm damp environment.

Particular diseases to look out for, in warm damp summer weather, include rose blackspot (small dark spots appear on the leaves which may turn yellow and fall off as spores are carried in water splashes); firelight, unusual but it attacks pear trees, hawthorne and cotoneaster and apples and pyracantha. Branches wilt and the leaves turn a burnt chestnut colour, spreading down the main trunk until the whole tree looks burnt. It is mainly carried by pollinating  insects and by raindrops between June and September.

Downy mildew is a late spring/early summer fungal disease that appears as an off white rather 'fluffy' growth underneath

April is generally the first month when you can actually start working in the garden again with some degree of comfort. It's great to get back outside in what is finally really warm Spring sunshine.

It's a really colourful month too ~ spring flowering versions of azaleas, rhododendrons & magnolias all start to come out. Time to feed the plants too. You should fertilise most annual, perennial and flowering shrubs and trees with a good plant food which will release nitrogen, potash, iron and other micro-nutrients slowly over the next few months to help the plants growth and overall development. Evergreens and deciduous shrubs and trees can be fed now as well with tree and shrub food, again it'll slowly release the above nutrients to help the plants development. If you have planted anything new this season use a starter plant food (preferably at the time of planting) so root growth is encouraged.

Freshly mulch flower beds: you may want to add a

March is the month when the Spring bulbs are out and start to give a good show. If you were on the ball and planted plenty of bulbs at the end of last year when the garden was looking dead and rather wet then the large amounts of sunshine in February (though not excessive warmth) may have helped push your displays on into bloom.

However, this is not the case everywhere by any means, as it is not really the amount of sunshine at this time of the year which brings the bulbs on. The temperature of the air and soil is the deciding factor, along with a good supply of moisture in the ground- though not too much. If anything the ground has actually been a little too dry recently, with the lack of expected rainfall in most parts. As I have mentioned regularly in the last few weeks in the 'blog' I put together here, although it was exceptionally sunny in February (East Anglia saw over twice the average sunshine it would normally expect for example) it was also

November already and as we lose an hour with the clocks back to GMT times for another six months, it now seems to darken very early. I used to worry, as a very young lad in late October, if it would be dark enough for fireworks at 7.30pm (my usual bedtime) by November 5th, but it always was! Something else I recall is that by then we would have gathered up huge piles of leaves ready to burn on the nights bonfire but recently many trees still seem yet to have shed their leaves by this date. So are we really seeing later leaf fall or is my old memory playing tricks?

Well, official research does seem to suggest that over the last thirty years, leaves have started to change colour and fall later in the year, a phenomenon that scientists now attribute directly to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Gail Taylor from the University of Southampton and her colleagues studied the growth and leaf fall of Populus trees (a genus which includes the poplar